Meat is Murder
From 1992 until about 2000, I was a vegetarian. Eggs, milk, and cheese were all part of my diet, but red meat, poultry, and fish were out. That all changed when I moved to Philadelphia, or to be more specific when I was at the Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival with Jim and Jennie. Jim was munching on a country ham sandwich, locally raised and slaughtered. Through a mouthful of ham, he mumbled, “I dare you to take a bite,” and that was the end of my vegetarianism.
The past 6 years have been an orgy of meat, a carnival in my intestines. Cheesesteaks became a kind of manna, greasy, salty scraps of ribeye soaked in cheese and wrapped in an Amoroso roll. Hamburgers. Chicken. Hot dogs. Steak. Beef. Pork. Lamb. You name the animal, and I’ve probably eaten it. All types of fishies. Octopus. Ostrich. Buffalo. Yak burgers. Venison. Kielbasa. Linguica. Chourico. Chorizo. Bacon. Canadian Bacon. I could go on like this all day.
[Warning: I am about to go to "Too Much Information" land, and if you have a weak stomach, I suggest you skip the following paragraph.]
The result of all this carnage have been less than satisfactory: my cholesterol is higher than it should be. Although the rest of me is skinny as a string bean, I have grown an unhealthily bloated belly that hangs off of me like some kind of alien pod. When I was a vegetarian, I produced one or two dumps a day: now, I shit constantly, and the shits are simply nasty: foul smelling spurts of liquid and the occasional turd as opposed to the logs I used to squeeze out. While I’m still pretty high energy, there’s been a noticeable drag on my usual pace.
This all changed about 4 weeks ago. I get paid bi-weekly, and after I pay my bills, including child support and my student loan, I’m usually scraping the bottom of the barrel on the day before payday. So I was looking at my budget for the week, and saw that I wasn’t going to be able to afford my usual sandwich from the deli down the street. Christina and I went to Trader Joes that afternoon to do her grocery shopping, and I found a special on boil-in-the-bag Indian meals for $2.00 a pop. I spent $10.00 and change and bought my lunch for the week: saag paneer, dal makhani, and a great lentil dish. I didn’t eat any meat that week, except for maybe a little chicken.
Goodness gracious, the effect was amazing! I felt a lot peppier than I’d felt in months. My head was a little clearer as well, and my shits, for the first time in years, weren’t cause for coastal evacuation plans, and instead of crapping throughout the day, i was back to one or two healthy solid dumps. So I decided to do an experiment: I spent the next week meat-free, until Friday. That evening, Christina wanted to go get Peking Duck, which she’d never had before. We headed down to Chinatown, and filled up on duck and a side of pork with garlic sauce. Saturday morning, another friend called up and asked me out to dim sum. Again, I filled up on pork dumplings, tofu skins filled with ground beef and pork, and more. Sunday, my parents paid a surprise visit in the late afternoon and took me out for pho, a Vietnamese beef noodle soup that is simply heavenly.
By Sunday night, I could barely move. I was back to where I was two weeks prior: bloated, low-energy, stupefied.
Since that night, I have pretty much avoided eating red meat and poultry. The results have been largely positive, and my gut is beginning to deflate.
Am I a born-again vegetarian? No. I fully intend to gorge on turkey and duck this Thanksgiving at my parents’ place, sure as I’ll be shovelling down whatever animal is placed in front of me on Christmas Eve. But as Cookie Monster has now sadly realized “cookies are a sometimes food”, I’m going to be changing my diet as well.
Meat is murder alright: murder on my guts, murder on my state of mind, and murder on my energy. More tofu, please!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
